Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Premonition: Dodgers 14, Marlins 5

I had a premonition last night that the Dodgers were about to blow out the Fish in spectacular fashion while handing Dontrelle Willis his first loss of the season. It turned out I was right (buffs fingernails); for my next act, I predict the Cubs will smash the Chisox in their upcoming series, for the simple reason that the Sox are not nearly as good a team as they're playing now, and with the pressure of having to defeat their hated crosstown rivals, they'll melt. (There, I've jinxed the already-cursed Cubs.)

This game was pretty much a laugher all the way through, save if your name happened to be J.D. Drew. Drew collected a golden sombrero, four strikeouts leaving five on base; he now has a .246/.379/.408 line, not appreciably better than Shawn Green's .248/.307/.383 line in Arizona. Of course, these are not park-adjusted numbers, but it does seem that Drew is slumping badly by his lights and needs to come back around.

As for everyone else: Izturis went 5-6, and how much else can you ask of your leadoff man? Bradley, Kent, Repko and Saenz all had great nights, and even Mike Edwards went 1-4 with a walk to keep his OBP up. Tomorrow: will they keep it going?

About the only downside the night had was Yhency's poor showing, giving up a pair of runs that raised his ERA to 3.86. Dodger pitching otherwise was at least acceptable if not great; Gagné came back to be the guy we remember, striking out two. If Paul Lo Duca was providing any lessons last night, they surely didn't work.

Two small, insignificant lowlights:

Charlie Steiner's Encanarcion. Still. The sooner we get away from playing the Fish, the better I'll feel.

I really felt sorry for the poor kid they put in for mopup duties, Travis Smith. A career minor leaguer, tonight was his third appearance of the year, and his fourth major league team since 1998. He's just a guy who's likely never going to make it; you have to admire the kind of determination it takes to stick it out in the minors that long. A 4-A type guy, he actually pitched 54 innings for St. Louis back in 2002, the year Darryl Kile died and the team was hopelessly shorthanded.

I was thinking something similar about Crowell last night while I was watching the game. At that point, why lift him? That said, it takes a certain level of courage to keep throwing even though it looked like he was throwing bp.